Inside the Huddle with Drew Henson
Inside the Huddle with Drew Henson
March 9, 2006
By Henry Hodgson
NFL Europe
Drew Henson has tasted life as a New York Yankee and a Dallas Cowboy – arguably the two biggest and best known teams in their respective sports. He has also spent time with the Yankees’ AAA farm team in Columbus Ohio, and has seen the hard work and graft necessary to make it to the big time. Now playing for the Rhein Fire in NFL Europe, Henson is once again working his way to the top – but through it all – and no matter which sport he is involved in, Henson knows that he is destined for sporting success.
Henson’s career has indeed taken him all over the sporting map. While he was a star quarterback at the University of Michigan, sharing time with Tom Brady as a sophomore before claiming the Wolverines’ starting job outright for his final two seasons, Henson was also in the Yankees’ farm system and was even called up to their roster twice. In 2004, however, he let the Yankees know that he intended to return to football, having been picked by the Houston Texans in the sixth-round of the 2003 NFL Draft.
“It wasn’t like I just woke up one day and decided that I was going to become a football player again,” explains Henson. “It was a very well thought out and considered process and I was very secure with making that decision.
At an eagerly anticipated workout in front of all 32 NFL teams in Houston in March 2004, Henson showed that he still had all the abilities that had made him a potential first-round pick, and the Dallas Cowboys traded a third-round selection to the Texans to add the talented but rusty player to their roster.
“Coming in to the NFL as a young player, and a young quarterback specifically, is not easy,” Henson admits. “One of the first things coach Bill Parcells told me when I arrived in Dallas was that this was not going to be a simple transition. I am pleased with my development as a player since I got into the NFL, and I think that coming to Europe is another step down the road to making my NFL career a successful one. I have come on in leaps and bounds since I got here and started working with the Rhein Fire.”
In the two seasons since Henson became a Cowboy he has bounced between the second and third quarterback positions – seeing time as a starter in the 2004 season’s Thanksgiving Day game against Chicago in relief of an injured Vinny Testaverde. In 2005, Henson sat behind Drew Bledsoe, and specifically approached Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones towards the end of the NFL season to put in a request to come to NFL Europe and get some much-needed playing time.
“NFL Europe is a chance for me to improve my game, work on specific things, and do it all in a real game setting. At quarterback there is so much more that goes on that you simply cannot simulate in a practice situation, and that is probably the biggest plus for me in my position,” Henson explains. “If I wasn’t here, yes, I would be back in Dallas working out, but I wouldn’t have this opportunity to play football.”
Backup quarterbacks in the NFL know that the majority of the reps in practice are going to go to the starter, and they must settle for what they can get. For Henson, however, playing time is imperative, as it is five years since he led an offense as a day-to-day starter – in 2000 as a junior at Michigan.
“I don’t think it will be a big change, because I have been in games, but actually playing full games, and doing that week to week to week will help me improve and get me ready to be a starter at the next level.”
The daily routine of being a starting quarterback for the Rhein Fire will allow him to refamiliarize himself with crucial aspects of playing football, and, he hopes, get him in the groove to be doing this as an NFL starter. “Being the leader of a team, learning the offense, managing games; those are all things that I have not been able to do for a while,” he continues. “More than just dropping back and throwing, winning football games is not something I have been doing. Responding after tough games. Making adjustments in games and from week to week. There are so many things that you lose when you don’t play on a regular basis.”
The irony is that while Henson has been away from these things in recent years, in his early life he was rarely far from a football field. His father, Dan Henson, was a long-time college coach who had stints at San Diego, the University of Arizona and Eastern Michigan – as well as being Drew’s coach at Brighton High School in Michigan. The lessons he learned being around the sport from such a young age have rubbed off on him as a professional player.
“I was a ball boy at the age of seven at a Division I school, so I really grew up around football,” Henson recalls. “You would see guys being successful and how they go around being leaders and how they relate to their teammates. When you are young and impressionable that kind of stuff sticks, and although I am a reserved guy when I am off the field, I have adopted a personality when I am on the field and on the sidelines as a quarterback and leader of a team.”
The leadership side of being a quarterback is an area that Henson realizes is crucial to not only his own, but also a team’s success. A naturally reserved character off the field, Henson is every inch the ‘field general’ once he steps onto it. “As a quarterback you do lead by example, but it is also a position where you have to be more vocal,” explains Henson. “When you are in a game or at practice and doing ‘football stuff’ you have to be heard and be the guy that your teammates listen to. That doesn’t mean that off the field you need to be loud, but your personality has to have that ability to change on the field.”
Throughout camp, Henson’s coaches with the Rhein Fire have been impressed with the way he has grown as a leader of the team.
“He is not a loud guy, but in every practice you see him talking to his receivers, explaining how they can do something different to make a route more effective or asking how he can get the ball to them in a better way, and they really do listen to him,” says Rhein Fire head coach Jim Tomsula.
“The guys on my team have been great so far in training camp, and we have had a good time together and very quickly come together as a team,” Henson says. “It is great to be a part of that at any level, and we all know that we want to win a championship together.”
While his leadership qualities have stood out, Henson’s NFL Europe League coaches are also trying to coax out of him some of his less natural attributes.
“A lot of the players who come to NFL Europe are too raw, and they play like they are playing in the backyard rather than at the professional level, so your task here is to polish them up” says Tomsula. “With Drew, to some extent, we are looking to take some of the polish off. I mean to say, we want to get him into the backyard again. I don't know the last time this was fun for him.
“The way I coach him, is that every time I see him on the field, and he isn’t smiling, I rip him. We want him to have fun with this and just go out and play. I’ll tell you what, right now, he is smiling a lot more, because he knows he is about to start a season and get to be the man on a team again, and that excites him.”
“They are trying to give me the freedom to play, and to play with freedom and not worrying about making mistakes,” says Henson. “To use my athletic ability – which is something I pride myself on – to make plays out of the pocket. Football is a sport that at this level is so much based around schemes and plans that have been drawn up and practiced and perfected, and I think what you have to do to truly be a great player is find a way within that to have the mindset to play like you were when you were growing up. Obviously you go through all you reads and progressions, but then find a way to make a play happen if what you want to see is not there.
“The best quarterbacks play within their system, but when things break down they can be spontaneous and make something positive happen. You have to find a balance between freelancing and knowing the play so well that you execute it perfectly every time.”
As part of this journey through NFL Europe, Henson has a pretty good guide. Rhein Fire offensive coordinator Steve Logan has been the quarterbacks coach for the past two NFL Europe League Offensive MVP’s - Berlin Thunder passers Rohan Davey and Dave Ragone.
“It is obviously exciting to come in and be part of something where the staff has a great track record of success,” says Henson. “It allows you to trust in their teaching and take it all in and get as comfortable as possible with their scheme and system and give you a chance to be a professional.”
“Drew has come on a long way since the first day we worked together in training camp. A really long way,” says Logan. “And we still have some way to go, but if he continues with this trend then yes, he is going to be a real good player here, and go back to Dallas better prepared to be of value to them too.”
Henson realizes that a good performance in games and on a day to day basis with the Fire could mean that his opportunity comes soon with Dallas. Current Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe is 34 years old and will be entering his 14th season in the NFL in 2006.
“I love being in Dallas and I love being a part of that franchise,” says Henson. “Hopefully playing in this league and being a starter day to day for a team will help my coaches with the Cowboys see that I am ready to be a good player in the NFL at my position.”
Fortunately for Henson, he has plenty of evidence to prove that a season playing in NFL Europe can help him grow both as a player and a person.
“I have had teammates from Michigan and Dallas play in the league, and they have all come back and told me that it was a great experience to help you grow as both a player and a person. That is one of the reasons why I pushed to come over here and I don’t know anyone who has been here who hasn’t had it help their game and come away with a great life experience.”
The Rhein Fire has a great history of success in NFL Europe – although in recent seasons the team has not lived up to the fans’ lofty expectations. This season, with a new coaching staff, the World Bowl to be played in Düsseldorf for the second consecutive year and Drew Henson at the helm, the fans are anticipating a triumphant campaign.
“We are the team that represents Düsseldorf, and we want to put a great product on the field, be as good as we can, and try to win a World Bowl,” says Henson. “I really think we can give the Fire fans something to cheer for.”
If he can have a great season in Europe and go back to Dallas having re-learned what it means to be a starting quarterback, Henson’s future could finally live up to the hype that has been placed on him.
“Going into my rookie year and over the past season there was never a point where I didn’t think I could play in the NFL,” he says. “At the same time, there was also a learning process to go through, and that is an ongoing one - no matter whether you are a rookie or a Pro Bowler, and at any position, there is always a learning process playing this game.”
If the learning process goes to plan, Henson’s gain should be Rhein’s too, as sustained success for him in NFL Europe should mean a winning road for the Fire.
March 9, 2006
By Henry Hodgson
NFL Europe
Drew Henson has tasted life as a New York Yankee and a Dallas Cowboy – arguably the two biggest and best known teams in their respective sports. He has also spent time with the Yankees’ AAA farm team in Columbus Ohio, and has seen the hard work and graft necessary to make it to the big time. Now playing for the Rhein Fire in NFL Europe, Henson is once again working his way to the top – but through it all – and no matter which sport he is involved in, Henson knows that he is destined for sporting success.
Henson’s career has indeed taken him all over the sporting map. While he was a star quarterback at the University of Michigan, sharing time with Tom Brady as a sophomore before claiming the Wolverines’ starting job outright for his final two seasons, Henson was also in the Yankees’ farm system and was even called up to their roster twice. In 2004, however, he let the Yankees know that he intended to return to football, having been picked by the Houston Texans in the sixth-round of the 2003 NFL Draft.
“It wasn’t like I just woke up one day and decided that I was going to become a football player again,” explains Henson. “It was a very well thought out and considered process and I was very secure with making that decision.
At an eagerly anticipated workout in front of all 32 NFL teams in Houston in March 2004, Henson showed that he still had all the abilities that had made him a potential first-round pick, and the Dallas Cowboys traded a third-round selection to the Texans to add the talented but rusty player to their roster.
“Coming in to the NFL as a young player, and a young quarterback specifically, is not easy,” Henson admits. “One of the first things coach Bill Parcells told me when I arrived in Dallas was that this was not going to be a simple transition. I am pleased with my development as a player since I got into the NFL, and I think that coming to Europe is another step down the road to making my NFL career a successful one. I have come on in leaps and bounds since I got here and started working with the Rhein Fire.”
In the two seasons since Henson became a Cowboy he has bounced between the second and third quarterback positions – seeing time as a starter in the 2004 season’s Thanksgiving Day game against Chicago in relief of an injured Vinny Testaverde. In 2005, Henson sat behind Drew Bledsoe, and specifically approached Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones towards the end of the NFL season to put in a request to come to NFL Europe and get some much-needed playing time.
“NFL Europe is a chance for me to improve my game, work on specific things, and do it all in a real game setting. At quarterback there is so much more that goes on that you simply cannot simulate in a practice situation, and that is probably the biggest plus for me in my position,” Henson explains. “If I wasn’t here, yes, I would be back in Dallas working out, but I wouldn’t have this opportunity to play football.”
Backup quarterbacks in the NFL know that the majority of the reps in practice are going to go to the starter, and they must settle for what they can get. For Henson, however, playing time is imperative, as it is five years since he led an offense as a day-to-day starter – in 2000 as a junior at Michigan.
“I don’t think it will be a big change, because I have been in games, but actually playing full games, and doing that week to week to week will help me improve and get me ready to be a starter at the next level.”
The daily routine of being a starting quarterback for the Rhein Fire will allow him to refamiliarize himself with crucial aspects of playing football, and, he hopes, get him in the groove to be doing this as an NFL starter. “Being the leader of a team, learning the offense, managing games; those are all things that I have not been able to do for a while,” he continues. “More than just dropping back and throwing, winning football games is not something I have been doing. Responding after tough games. Making adjustments in games and from week to week. There are so many things that you lose when you don’t play on a regular basis.”
The irony is that while Henson has been away from these things in recent years, in his early life he was rarely far from a football field. His father, Dan Henson, was a long-time college coach who had stints at San Diego, the University of Arizona and Eastern Michigan – as well as being Drew’s coach at Brighton High School in Michigan. The lessons he learned being around the sport from such a young age have rubbed off on him as a professional player.
“I was a ball boy at the age of seven at a Division I school, so I really grew up around football,” Henson recalls. “You would see guys being successful and how they go around being leaders and how they relate to their teammates. When you are young and impressionable that kind of stuff sticks, and although I am a reserved guy when I am off the field, I have adopted a personality when I am on the field and on the sidelines as a quarterback and leader of a team.”
The leadership side of being a quarterback is an area that Henson realizes is crucial to not only his own, but also a team’s success. A naturally reserved character off the field, Henson is every inch the ‘field general’ once he steps onto it. “As a quarterback you do lead by example, but it is also a position where you have to be more vocal,” explains Henson. “When you are in a game or at practice and doing ‘football stuff’ you have to be heard and be the guy that your teammates listen to. That doesn’t mean that off the field you need to be loud, but your personality has to have that ability to change on the field.”
Throughout camp, Henson’s coaches with the Rhein Fire have been impressed with the way he has grown as a leader of the team.
“He is not a loud guy, but in every practice you see him talking to his receivers, explaining how they can do something different to make a route more effective or asking how he can get the ball to them in a better way, and they really do listen to him,” says Rhein Fire head coach Jim Tomsula.
“The guys on my team have been great so far in training camp, and we have had a good time together and very quickly come together as a team,” Henson says. “It is great to be a part of that at any level, and we all know that we want to win a championship together.”
While his leadership qualities have stood out, Henson’s NFL Europe League coaches are also trying to coax out of him some of his less natural attributes.
“A lot of the players who come to NFL Europe are too raw, and they play like they are playing in the backyard rather than at the professional level, so your task here is to polish them up” says Tomsula. “With Drew, to some extent, we are looking to take some of the polish off. I mean to say, we want to get him into the backyard again. I don't know the last time this was fun for him.
“The way I coach him, is that every time I see him on the field, and he isn’t smiling, I rip him. We want him to have fun with this and just go out and play. I’ll tell you what, right now, he is smiling a lot more, because he knows he is about to start a season and get to be the man on a team again, and that excites him.”
“They are trying to give me the freedom to play, and to play with freedom and not worrying about making mistakes,” says Henson. “To use my athletic ability – which is something I pride myself on – to make plays out of the pocket. Football is a sport that at this level is so much based around schemes and plans that have been drawn up and practiced and perfected, and I think what you have to do to truly be a great player is find a way within that to have the mindset to play like you were when you were growing up. Obviously you go through all you reads and progressions, but then find a way to make a play happen if what you want to see is not there.
“The best quarterbacks play within their system, but when things break down they can be spontaneous and make something positive happen. You have to find a balance between freelancing and knowing the play so well that you execute it perfectly every time.”
As part of this journey through NFL Europe, Henson has a pretty good guide. Rhein Fire offensive coordinator Steve Logan has been the quarterbacks coach for the past two NFL Europe League Offensive MVP’s - Berlin Thunder passers Rohan Davey and Dave Ragone.
“It is obviously exciting to come in and be part of something where the staff has a great track record of success,” says Henson. “It allows you to trust in their teaching and take it all in and get as comfortable as possible with their scheme and system and give you a chance to be a professional.”
“Drew has come on a long way since the first day we worked together in training camp. A really long way,” says Logan. “And we still have some way to go, but if he continues with this trend then yes, he is going to be a real good player here, and go back to Dallas better prepared to be of value to them too.”
Henson realizes that a good performance in games and on a day to day basis with the Fire could mean that his opportunity comes soon with Dallas. Current Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe is 34 years old and will be entering his 14th season in the NFL in 2006.
“I love being in Dallas and I love being a part of that franchise,” says Henson. “Hopefully playing in this league and being a starter day to day for a team will help my coaches with the Cowboys see that I am ready to be a good player in the NFL at my position.”
Fortunately for Henson, he has plenty of evidence to prove that a season playing in NFL Europe can help him grow both as a player and a person.
“I have had teammates from Michigan and Dallas play in the league, and they have all come back and told me that it was a great experience to help you grow as both a player and a person. That is one of the reasons why I pushed to come over here and I don’t know anyone who has been here who hasn’t had it help their game and come away with a great life experience.”
The Rhein Fire has a great history of success in NFL Europe – although in recent seasons the team has not lived up to the fans’ lofty expectations. This season, with a new coaching staff, the World Bowl to be played in Düsseldorf for the second consecutive year and Drew Henson at the helm, the fans are anticipating a triumphant campaign.
“We are the team that represents Düsseldorf, and we want to put a great product on the field, be as good as we can, and try to win a World Bowl,” says Henson. “I really think we can give the Fire fans something to cheer for.”
If he can have a great season in Europe and go back to Dallas having re-learned what it means to be a starting quarterback, Henson’s future could finally live up to the hype that has been placed on him.
“Going into my rookie year and over the past season there was never a point where I didn’t think I could play in the NFL,” he says. “At the same time, there was also a learning process to go through, and that is an ongoing one - no matter whether you are a rookie or a Pro Bowler, and at any position, there is always a learning process playing this game.”
If the learning process goes to plan, Henson’s gain should be Rhein’s too, as sustained success for him in NFL Europe should mean a winning road for the Fire.
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